Hillary Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton (26 October 1947-) was the US Secretary of State from 21 January 2009 to 1 February 2013, succeeding Condoleezza Rice and preceding John Kerry. She also served as Senator from New York (D) from 3 January 2001 to 21 January 2009, succeeding Daniel Patrick Moynihan and preceding Kirsten Gillibrand. Clinton was the wife of President Bill Clinton and First Lady of both Arkansas and the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, and she became a well-known feminist and supporter of healthcare reform. During the 2016 presidential election, she controversially won the Democratic nomination over Bernie Sanders through machine politics, and she lost the election to Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in the Electoral College, while having over 3,000,000 more votes in the popular vote.

Biography
Hillary Rodham was born at Park Ridge, Illinois, United States in 1947. She was originally a Goldwater Republican, and she studied at Wellesley College and Yale Law School. She became a distinguished and successful lawyer associated with children's rights who practiced law in Arkansas and headed various state committees while her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor of that state. Rodham Clinton gave up her legal practice to become First Lady in 1993, but she maintained a prominent policy role by chairing the Task Force on National Health Reform, which produced proposals for the reform of the US healthcare system that were defeated in a venomous congressional battle in 1994. During her husband's first term as President, she became a controversial figure because of her futures deals whilst a lawyer in Arkansas (the Whitewater controversy). She was also criticized for her feminism and her strong influence on her husband, and she lost further credibility over suspicions about her role in appropriating the papers of her former law partner, Vincent Foster - a White House aide - after his suicide in 1994. During her husband's career, she was sometimes forced by public opinion to play to conservative images of femininity or risk personal attack. For instance, she added her husband's surname Clinton to her own to further his political prospects. Her marital relationship came under scrutiny after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but she reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.

In 2000, Clinton became the first female Senator from New York, and she was re-elected in 2006. In 2008, she lost the Democratic presidential primaries to Barack Obama, but she won far more delegates than any previous female candidate. She served as Obama's Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, and she advocated for US military intervention in the Libyan Civil War. She also advocated sanctions against Iran in response to its nuclear program, leading to the Iran nuclear deal. Clinton left office after Obama's first term ended. She made a second presidential run in 2016, and she received the most votes and primary delegates in the primaries, defeating her more popular rival, Bernie Sanders. There was controversy surrounding her victory, particularly after Russian hackers released intercepted e-mails showing that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile had rigged the primaries in her favor, although her involvement in the scheming is unclear. Plagued with controversies old and new, such as her alleged prior knowledge of the 2012 Benghazi attack and her use of private e-mail servers to share allegedly classified information, Clinton faced a hard opponent when the Republicans nominated the right-wing populist Donald Trump to run against her. Clinton was repeatedly investigated by the FBI about Benghazi, and the last investigation took place just a week before election day. The Russian hacks against the Democratic Party (and in favor of Trump), her controversies, and her failure to visit Wisconsin before the election contributed to her Electoral College defeat, while she won around 3,000,000 more votes than Trump in terms of the popular vote. Clinton decided to become a "citizen activist" after the election, advocating for the Democratic Party's cause.